The Celebrity Apprentice: Cyndi Lauper
One of these things is not like the others. Philanthropist/activist (oh yes, and musician) Cyndi Lauper competes with lower-tier stars like Brett Michaels and Sinbad to be a Donald Trump employee
Archive for March, 2010
Prisoners of Love
Live the dream. Do the time. Find the one. That’s the tag line for the upcoming release of I Love You Phillip Morris, the Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor gay romance with a “spectacular, ride-’em-cowboy sex scene” that Variety, the show-biz bible, predicted “will give some fans of Ace Ventura heart attacks.”
Peggy Lee: Let’s Love
In 1974, Lee’s dinner guest, Paul McCartney, presented her with a most unusual hostess gift: “Let’s Love,” a song he wrote especially for her.
Homewrecker
Just when you thought Lifetime television for women couldn’t get any gayer comes this send-up of the network’s flair for the dramatic, but this time with a comedic gay twist.
Person of Interest
When three women disappear from a small New England town, the local sheriff, Nickie (Elise Rovinsky), turns to the local psychic, James (Cuyle Carvin), for help.
Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Roller Girls
Roller derby has made a big comeback, as told in this rock-infused doc focusing on Seattle’s notorious all-female league. With players like Ida Slapter, Sybil Unrest, Ann Munition, Georgia O’Grief, Sara Problem, and other cleverly hysterical monikers, it takes a strong woman to roll on these fast lanes.
Bad Girls of Film Noir
Given a suggestive title like Bad Girls of Film Noir, one has good reason to expect some fun girls-gone-wild action (if not exactly girls-with-girls action), and this new two-volume collection won’t disappoint those who have a taste for femme fatales of the B-movie kind, namely Gloria Grahame, Cleo Moore, Terry Moore, and Audrey Totter, among others. The standouts of Vol. 1 may be a couple of Lizabeth Scott titles: 1951’s Two of a Kind and 1953’s Bad for Each Other, the latter also starring known heterosexual Charlton Heston. But go directly to Vol. 2 for Ida Lupino’s turn as a tough prison warden in 1955’s silly Women’s Prison. Interestingly, this film doesn’t even hint at lesbianism-behind-bars, whereas the five-years-older Caged (not included here) remains something of a landmark in the area.
Marathon
Former U.S. poet laureate William Meredith suffered a debilitating stroke 17 years into his relationship with his partner Richard Harteis, who was also a poet. Their unwavering commitment to each other, despite seemingly insurmountable hardship, is truly poetic in this visually stunning primer of why same-sex couples need the protection of marriage.
Hurt So Good
Whether unrecognizable beneath layers of prosthetics in David Lynch’s elegantly heartbreaking The Elephant Man, or dandified with fedora, scarf, and makeup in The Naked Civil Servant, John Hurt is an unsung master at disappearance. His portrayals of famous outsiders-turned-interlopers are the kind of tour de force so delicate they could shame the nominated Streep-and-Sandra combo of this year’s Oscars (worthy performances though they both may be).
PastOut: Seven Years Ago in OutSmart
Pn March 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, by which they would decide whether the Texas sodomy statute violated gay citizens’ constitutional rights of privacy and equal protection under the law. In OutSmart, Mitchell Katine, attorney for petitioners John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, explained the lower-court history of the landmark civil rights case and outlined important legal issues that would be decided by the Court.
